🛒 The Check-Out: SIMPLi
+ 5 cool climate events + what's in our basket - Avec, Planet:Critical + more...
Happy Thursday! Welcome to The Check-Out - your weekly dose of climate x consumer goods inspiration, and your discovery box of products and events the Following the Footprints team are loving this week. It’s great to have you here.
One topic we’ve been hot under the collar for recently is regenerative agriculture. Ok, we’ve been obsessed for a little while (aka, the last four years of FTF), but recently we’ve been excited by the plethora of brands truly truly figuring out how to support regenerative agriculture via their business models and importantly educate their consumers about it too - browse others here. Today, Jenny is digging into a poster child brand for this - SIMPLi.
After we look at SIMPLi, we’ll share what the Following the Footprints team has loved and consumed this week and 5 Climate x Consumer Goods events coming up. Let’s dig in…
> Brand Spotlight
In a complex agricultural landscape, let’s keep it SIMPLi
SIMPLi is harnessing the power of regenerative, organic agriculture to deliver you the best grains, beans, oils, and superfoods / spices you’ve ever tasted. Our favourite part? SIMPLi’s focus on transparent supply chains and sustainable international sourcing means that you can make bangin’ bean soups this winter knowing exactly where your food came from, and who contributed to the delicious end result - something we don’t take for granted here at FTF!
SIMPLi’s grains and legumes are Regenerative Organic Certified (ROC), so all of their farm partners care for their land in a way that improves soil health and benefits the greater ecosystem: cover cropping, rotating crops, low-to-no till, and no use of key offending chemical pesticides and fertilisers. The regenerative agriculture movement has continued to gain traction across the world (see regenerative agtech start-up Klim’s recent $22M Series A), due to the high emissions of conventional, industrial agriculture (estimated 25% of total global) and the continued depletion of topsoil globally, which risks community food production and threatens agriculturally-driven GDPs. The SIMPLi team is quick to point out that many of these practices are not new, as they have been key tenets of land stewardship for centuries; per Herrada, “we can’t speak about regenerative organic agriculture without speaking about indigenous agriculture.”
One of the most well-known Indigenous crop-symbiosis traditions is the ‘three sisters’: referred to as Diohe'ko, maize (corn), beans, and squash were first grown together (intercropped / interplanted) by the Seneca Iroquois tribe and held great cultural and practical significance. The corn stalks provided poles for legume growth, which in turn enriched the soil with nitrogen, and the low-growing squash plants deterred weeds and kept the ground moist. While this is just one example of traditional symbiosis, SIMPLi’s forest-level perspective on food production, and the respect for millenia-old indigenous farming practices, is at the core of their business.
SIMPLi is not co-founder and CEO Sarela Herrada’s first foray into food systems; prior to starting the company in 2020, she was CAVA’s Supply Chain Manager and then Director of Food & Beverage at a time of extreme growth for the Mediterranean fast-casual culinary empire. The idea for SIMPLi was inspired by Herrada’s upbringing in Peru and her desire to directly empower farming communities growing crops - like quinoa, SIMPLi’s first offering - that have become quite popular in the Western world, without the accompanying knowledge of their producers and historical significance. The brand is built around celebrating the whole agricultural ecosystem, so after introducing quinoa they quickly worked to produce and sell other crops that rotate with quinoa, like lupini beans.
A future with rampant hunger, dust-bowl-esque natural disasters, and a loss of ancestral agricultural wisdom is not one the SIMPLi team wants to see. What stands out to us is how they’ve so thoughtfully considered all of the people impacted by, and contributing to, their products.
We’d love to see this ethos applied across many more companies and verticals - how are you, on your own teams, uplifting your producers and fostering more thoughtful, connected consumption? As always, comment or reply to let us know!
Hungry for more? Follow up with…
> In Our Basket
🔎 What we loved and consumed this week:
From Katherine in London: Last month I walked the Camino with my mom and really loved the experience. However when prepping for it I wanted to keep costs down and see how many things I could get secondhand. So of course I turned to Vinted and managed to get some hiking shoes and two backpacks which saw us through the trip! Also was very grateful to Buen Camino - the free app which guided us the whole way 😅
From Lexi in San Diego: My #1 podcast rec right now is Planet: Critical with Rachel Donald. It’s been a refreshingly transparent listen, getting to the bottom of the climate crisis by platforming fascinating voices. As Rachel puts it, the show is “journalism for a world in crisis, connecting the dots of science, art, language, politics, media, philosophy and power to reveal the big picture.” My favorite episodes so far have been the ones featuring Veronica Bates Kassatly, Emily Atkin, and Jane van Dis.
From Jenny in New York: I’m always on the hunt for interesting non-alc beverages that are also low in sugar, and I’ve been very pleased with Avec’s Fuji Apple & Cardamom flavor. Each can only has 5g of sugar but tastes leagues beyond a run-of-the-mill flavored sparkling water.
> Monthly Events Roundup!
📆 5 Consumer Goods x Climate Events:
Browse 20+ upcoming consumer x climate events, and submit yours.
4th December - Supply Chain Engagement and Decarbonisation
Organisers: NetNada
Location: Virtual
5th December - Circularity by Design: How to Influence Sustainable Consumer Behaviors
Organisers: Sustainable Brands
Location: Virtual
6th December - Future Shakers Climate Risk and Reporting Masterclass
Organisers: Future Shakers
Location: Greenhouse, Sydney, Australia
10th December - B Corp Workshop for Advancing Climate Justice
Organisers: B Lab US & Canada
Location: Virtual
15th-17th January - Better Business Summit
Organisers: Better Business Network
Location: Manchester, UK
That’s it for today!
Know a brand we should spotlight next? Let Leone know!
Have links that can make the team learn or laugh? Share them with us, we might just share them in The Check-Out next week.
Hungry for more? You’ll see us on Monday! That’s when we suit up and get serious, digging into a topic that is guaranteed to make you look smart at standup.
Much love,
Team FTF